Manga Review: Wonderland by Yugo Ishikawa

Seven Seas
October 30th 2015
180 Pages

Teenage girl Yukko awakens to find that she has shrunken in size–but this is no rabbit hole or fairy tale–this is real life! In a desperate and bloody struggle to stay alive, while fleeing giant predators and other twisted dangers, Yukko learns that she is not the only person who has turned tiny.

Can she survive long enough to learn the truth behind her curious transformation?- Goodreads

This is a Alice in Wonderland retelling. But it is no where near your typical retelling. Yukko is the focus of this manga with Alice, technically, the side character (I only read the first volume, so that may be subject to change).

The story takes place in the modern world and Yukko wakes up tiny. She comes to find out her parents are tiny as well as the people of her neighborhood. From the time she wakes up, it is a battle to survive. At first, I thought this manga was going The Borrowers route and I honestly wouldn’t have been mad at that (its a classic movie to me). However, I am glad it didn’t go that route.

This manga is a bit dark. What makes it dark is reading how humanity reacts to this issue. Yeah, you see death. Yeah, there is an emotional pull and yes, you see blood. But you expect some really messed up cover-up from the government but what you don’t expect is how the people around you react. I mean maybe you do but it still isn’t pretty to look at.

In regards to artwork, there is nothing special well let me rephrase. . .  nothing groundbreaking about it. Its good, do not get me wrong but the artwork didn’t caught me; only the story.

The pace of the novel is A+ It moves fast enough where the reader doesn’t feel like the author is adding a lot of fluff and oddly enough the first volume gives you a lot of background information. It is a really good balance and keeps the read interested.

Overall, I liked this manga and plan on continuing it.

3 Pickles

Book Review: Unhinged (Splintered #2) by A.G. Howard

Amulet
Published Jan. 7, 2014
400 Pages

This is book two of the Splintered series. If you haven’t read the first one check out the review here.

It has been a year since Alyssa has been down the Rabbit Hole and literally all hell has broken loose in the real world and in Wonderland. Her mother is being overprotective, Jeb doesn’t remember anything about Wonderland, graduation and prom is approaching and mostly importantly the Red Queen is in the real world.

All Alyssa wants to do is graduate and go to London with her boyfriend for school. But Morpheus needs Alyssa to save Wonderland if she doesn’t the consequences can be UN-fixable. 

If you saw my review of the first book, you will understand that I really didn’t care for Alyssa or Jeb for that matter. I still don’t. Actually I think I dislike them more in this book and I honestly didn’t think that was possible.

Alyssa is a selfish girl. All she cares about is Jeb. For the past year she has disregarded her duties as Queen of Wonderland and because of that the Red Queen was able to take control and destroy so much.  Her selfishness throughout the book is so sickening, reading this book was a struggle.

Alyssa also decides not to tell her mother most of what happened. So there is a struggle between Alyssa and her mother. Alyssa doesn’t trust her and her mother is fighting that. I also did not understand this because Alyssa went into Wonderland to lift the curse to save her mother and yet now she can’t even be near her.

Finally, my biggest issue was if Alyssa couldn’t understand something or didn’t like the way things was going it was Morpheus fault. Really? You have a evil Queen destroying Wonderland and hunting you down in your real world and it is the guy who sacrificed his life for you fault?

Not feeling this book. Overall it gets: 2 Pickles